Philosophy. What. Why.

Photo taken from here.

Philo: from Greek philos, meaning "love", or "fondness".
sophy: from Greek sophia, meaning "wisdom".

Ahhh, the love of wisdom -- such a nice way of putting it. Too bad philosophy is often times rather unwise and unloving. Don't get me wrong, I do believe that there still exists a kind of romantic connotation in the word itself. One might imagine a circle of wizards or a group of monks, possibly a Gandolf looking character that lives in the woods. In any case, the general view of the philosopher is rarely an accurate one -- at least in my experience. At the same time, many of the stereotypes do seem to fit, such as the general view that philosophers think a lot, are generally not what you'd refer to as your average folk, and quite possibly come from different planets. Or so it would seem.

Obviously there are many people that would fall under the above description, and many, many more that would not, but what exactly does it mean to practice philosophy? In the strictest, most modern (and western) sense, if you aren't hashing out truth-trees and various forms of logic, you are probably somewhere in the fuzzy-grey area of doing philosophy. Most often, practicing philosophy involves trying to reach the best (or what seems to be the best) conclusion in regards to a particular issue, like whether or not I should continue writing this post, or whether you should continue reading it. Essentially, the mark of the philosopher involves one question: "why?"

To be continued...